Officials: Weiss winter rise won't be implemented soon

By Scott Wright

CENTRE — One federal agency is almost ready to OK Alabama Power Company's plan to allow an extra three feet of water to remain in Weiss Lake during the winter months. But red tape and an ongoing water war will likely prevent that from happening, at least for several years.

Part of Alabama Power's new license application includes a request, made at the urging of several local organizations including the Weiss Lake Improvement Association and a group of local lakefront home owners, to allow Alabama Power to increase the winter water level in Weiss by three feet.

Full summer pool in Weiss reservoir is 564 ft. above sea level, with a six-foot drawdown beginning in September that drops the level to 558 ft. by January. The water is slowly returned to full-pool by May. The new license would allow Alabama Power to increase the winter level to 561 ft. above sea level.

Alabama Power began the process of obtaining a new license to operate the Weiss Dam and reservoir in 2000 and filed its application in July 2005. Re-licensing Project Manager Jim Crew said the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is now near the end of what is typically a multi-year review of the renewal application.

“It's not unusual for the process to take this long,” Crew told The Post. “That's why the application is submitted two years in advance of the license expiration date.”

But Alabama Power officials believe it is unusual for the Army Corps of Engineers (COE) to decide it needs to review and possibly rewrite a major operations manual before determining whether the request for more water in the winter could have adverse effects on the Coosa River basin.

“It has been frustrating,” Crew said. “We don't really know why they feel they need to update their manual right now -- they didn't have to do it when we got a license amendment for Neely Henry, which included a higher winter pool.”

The manual in question, called the Regulatory Master Applications Manual, outlines how the COE operates and maintains the entire river basin, according to a COE spokesman. It was created in the 1950's.

“The manual dictates how we operate the system both during normal conditions and during flood conditions,” said Mobile District Chief of Public Affairs Pat Robbins. “It dictates which agencies we contact, who we work with, etc.”

Robbins said the difference between Neely Henry's lake level increase and the one requested for Weiss is simple: the Weiss increase, if approved, would be permanent. He said the Neely Henry increase was requested on an interim basis. Robbins said that in order to allow the COE to respond promptly and properly to any future flood event that might result from permanently higher wintertime levels in Weiss, the manual must be comprehensively updated.

“The manual is decades old and does not include a lot of situations that have changed over the years,” said Robbins. “Population changes along river banks, recreational uses, all have to be taken into consideration before a permanent a change in wintertime level can be safely adopted.”

And then there's the tri-state water war.

Robbins said the COE will not make any attempt to begin the process of rewriting its operations manual until the decades-old dispute between Alabama, Georgia and Florida over how to share water in the Alabama-Coosa-Tallapoosa river basin is resolved.

“We hope the states will have that situation resolved by March 31,” Robbins said. He acknowledged that negotiations between the states have dragged on for over a decade, but said he is hopeful a settlement can be reached by the March deadline.

Crew said so far in the renewal process, FERC has also caused a couple of small delays by asking for additional information from Alabama Power. But he said the FERC follow-up is common for this type of process.

“We answered one request in July 2006 and then got another request for additional information in December,” he said. “We're working towards a March 8 deadline to reply to the second request from FERC.”

Crew promised the information from Alabama Power will get to the federal agency on time. At that point, Crew said, FERC will, allow other agencies, such as any interested environmental and water management entities, an opportunity to submit additional requests that will have to be considered before a new license is approved.

Crew said Alabama Power has that aspect of the process under control.

“We've already met extensively with those other agencies, and any issues important to them have been included in our license application,” he said, “so we don't anticipate any delays there.”

Even with those discussions out of the way, Crew said FERC has a number of other regulatory steps they must take in their review process. Based upon where we are today, Alabama Power should be able to expect a new license by the first or second quarter of 2008. He said he isn't worried that, at the earliest, the new license won't be issued until after the current one expires.

“When our license expires in July, FERC will issue us a temporary, annual license that will allow us to continue our operations until the new license is approved,” he said. “That is what they do if the license expires before they have a new one ready to issue.”

Crew said the temporary license will be identical to the previous license. So, until the new license is issued, there will be no wintertime lake level increase in Weiss.

But that still leaves the Corps of Engineers, and Crew said there's no way to know when the Army might decide the proposed Weiss winter lake level meets their standards. “We've been told it may be at least mid-2008 before their new manual is ready,” Crew said.

Robbins said the time frame for a new manual to be created will probably take a little longer than that. “That typically takes about two years, provided the funding is available,” he said.

Crew said that information was news to Alabama Power.

“This is the first we've heard that the Corps of Engineers cannot begin the process of rewriting their manual until the water war issue is resolved,” Crew said. “We also don't understand why they consider Neely Henry to be different from Weiss, regarding the request for increased winter levels.”

Regardless of the confusion between Alabama Power and the COE, Crew said he expects that FERC will issue a permanent license after the one-year temporary license expires. But even with the new license, Alabama Power will not be able to alter the winter water level until the Corps gives the all-clear, he said.

“We'll be able to implement all other aspects of the new license except the winter water level increase,” Crew said. “Even though FERC, by granting the new license, will be effectively saying we have their approval, we will still have to wait for the Corps to complete their analyses and determine they are satisfied there won't be any problems before we can raise the winter level in the Weiss reservoir.”